56o 



NA TURE 



[Oct. 19, 1876 



the funds should be devoted to the establishment of a science 

 and practice institute for working men. All the speakers in the 

 Education department of the Congress seem to be agreed that 

 there is vast room and urgent need for improvement in the edu- 

 cation of the country. When so many intelligent and influential 

 men are agreed on this point, how is it so little is done to mend 

 matters? After the reading of a paper on Tuesday by Mr. 

 W. J. V/atts on the proposed Imperial Museum for India and 

 the Colonies, a proposal was unanimously adopted by the Sec- 

 tion of Economy and Trade, " that the Section recommend the 

 Council to consider the propriety of memorialising her Majesty's 

 Government in favour of establishing an Imperial Museum for 

 India and the Colonies in London, and, if possible, with special 

 arrangements for loan collections." In connection with the meet- 

 ing of the Social Science Congress, at Liverpool, the Liverpool 

 Albion has published a series of articles on the progress, present 

 condition, and the great men born in that town. These have 

 now been reprinted in a neat little pamphlet. 



Some account of Mr. Giles's trans-Australian journey has 

 reached this country ; he arrived in South Australia in August. 

 Mr. Giles, who started on April 10 from a spot 27° 7' South 

 latitude and 116° 45' East longitude, says : — " I made a generally 

 north-east by east course by way of Mount Gould, in latitude 

 26-46, till the 24th parallel was reached. I traced the Ashburton 

 to its sources, and determined the old watershed by the western 

 rivers, which is simply a mass of rangy country abutting upon 

 the desert in longitude 120° 20'. From the depot on the Ash- 

 burton I went up to the 23rd parallel. No watercourses flowed 

 eastward. From the end of the watershed in that longitude, the 

 latitude being near the 24th parallel, to the Rawlinson Range of 

 my last horse expedition, in longitude 127°, the country was all 

 open spinifex sandhill desert. At starting into the desert most 

 of the camels were continually poisoned, the plant which 

 poisoned them not being allied in any way to the poison plants 

 of the settled districts of Western Australia. I now know it well, 

 and have brought specimens. The longest stretch without water 

 was a ten days' march. One old cow camel died after reaching 

 the water. We had some rain on May 8 before reaching the 

 Ashburton, and some of it must have extended into the desert. 

 It was the only chance water we obtained. We had some more 

 rain north of the Alfred and Mary ranges. Portions of the 

 Rawlinson and Petermann ranges had been visited by rains, but 

 the further we went eastward the more desolated with drought 

 the country became. We struck the telegraph line at the 

 angle poles close to Mount Halloran, on the Neal's River, 

 sixty miles from the Peake, and travelled thence down the line 

 to the station. We were all attacked with ophthalmia before 

 the rains fell in May. The winter was excessively cold, the 

 thermometer in the morning for weeks being down to 18°. No 

 natives were met with from Mount Gould to the Petermrun 

 Ranges, at which last-named place they were friendly. In 

 Musgrove Range they stole a few things, but I was absent at 

 the time. The camels have travelled splendidly." 



A Mushroom Exhibition will be opened on the 23rd inst. at 

 the rooms of the French Botanical Society, 84 rue de Crenelle, 

 Paris, which is likely to be of interest both from a scientific and 

 an economical point of view. It is proposed to bring together 

 all species of mushrooms, either in a fresh or a dry state, eatable, 

 poisonous, hurtful to agriculture, as well as books, drawings, 

 and engravings bearing on the subject. The exhibition will last 

 eight days, during which there will be suitable • lectures, as well 

 as excursions to the neighbourhood of Paris. The following 

 questions are proposed by the Society : — i. On the development 

 of the reproductive organs of mushrooms ; what is the exact 

 signification of the terms spores, chlamydospores, stylospores, 

 conidia, spetmatia, &c. 2. Fungoid protoplasm compared with 



that of the vegetable chlorophylls. 3. On the classification of 

 the Agarici, and generally the relative value of characteristics 

 among mushrooms. 4. Study of the substrata necessary to the 

 development of various fungoid species and of the relation which 

 exists between the substrata and these species ; questions relative 

 to parasitism. 5. On edible mushrooms in various regions. 

 6. The necessity of encouraging chemical investigation on mush- 

 rooms ; a resume of the facts ascertained in this department to 

 the present time. 7. The best processes for preserving mush- 

 rooms for study. 8. Bibliographical researches on the mycolo- 

 gists of last century. 



A Tashkend telegram of October 6 announces that the 

 scientific staff of General Skobeleff's Alai Expedition have ac- 

 complished their work most successfully. The Alai and Trans- 

 Alai mountains and the northern part of the Pamir plateau were 

 surveyed along the routes followed, and astronomical determina- 

 tions of latitude and longitude made. The highest spot, where 

 astronomical observations were made, was at a height of 14,500 

 feet, and is in the part of Pamir called Khorgota. The height 

 of the Oos-Bel pass was 15,500 feet. Measurements of the mag- 

 netic declination were also made on the Pamir plateau, and 

 valuable collections brought home. The map of the Alai, 

 plotted by Dr. Petermann on the basis of the surveys and 

 descriptions of the late M. Fedchenko, proved to be very 

 satisfactory. 



The congress of the International Geodesical Association, 

 established by several European governments, was held this 

 year at Brussels, and will be held in 1877 at Stuttgart. For a 

 number of years the French Government abstained from send- 

 ing delegates, but they were represented this year by M. Faye, 

 M. Yvon Villarceau, and Major Perrier, director of the French 

 Survey. The president was General Ibanez, the Spanish delegate. 

 Switzerland was represented by M. Hirsh, Prussia by General von 

 Baeyer, Austria by Oppolzer, Belgium by Major Adan, Saxony by 

 M. Bruhm, Russia by General de Forsh. Neither England nor the 

 United States sent any delegates. A report was presented by Major 

 Adan on the registering meteorological instruments established 

 at Ostend by Prof. Rysselberghe, of the Ostend Navigation 

 School. These instruments, which obtained an exceptional 

 reward at the International Geographical Exhibition at Paris 

 in 1874, were praised in very warm terms. It is said that 

 they will be used at a number of maritime stations for registering 

 the tides. On the proposition of General Ibanez a requisition 

 is to be sent to the French Government asking them to take the 

 necessary steps for joining the French and the Spanish triangu- 

 lations. 



We are glad to be able to state, at the request of the Hon. 

 W. B. D. Mantell, of the New Zealand Legislative Council that 

 he has publicly repudiated the contemptuous words in reference to 

 scientific men attributed to him in Nature, vol. xiv. p. 90. Such 

 a statement, he says, would be an act of "gross and insane in- 

 gratitude" towards many men whom he is proud to call his 

 friends. He was speaking only of "the shams and Douster- 

 swivels of science," for nobody could have a greater or more 

 devoted esteem for scientific men than he had. He was per- 

 fectly serious in proposing that an inquiry should be made in 

 reference to the discovery of the skeleton referred to. 



Dr. McKendrick has been appointed to the Chair of 

 Physiology in the University of Glasgow. 



The Fellows of the College of Physicians of Dublin have deli- 

 berately determined to admit Miss EdithjPechey to the examina- 

 tionfor theL.K.Q.C.P.I., and have thus thrown open the portals 

 of the medical profession to all comers, whether they be "persons" 

 of the male or female sex. However pregnant of results this de- 

 cision may be, says the Medical Press and Circular, it does not 



